by Bruce Walker
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation on Monday asked several national bureaus to investigate alleged financial improprieties by Healthcare Michigan, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.
NRWLDF President Mark Mix formally requested the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. attorney of Michigan, and the U.S. Office of Labor-Management Practices to investigate Healthcare Michigan with regard to “serious allegations of financial wrongdoing.” The Foundation is providing legal assistance to Sinai-Grace workers seeking a decertification vote to remove HCMI representation from the Detroit hospital.
SEIU placed HCMI into an emergency trusteeship in February 2017, after receiving allegations of “financial malpractice,” read a SEIU release at the time. It has since been removed from the organization’s website, but the text is still available in an MLive news story.
“After someone with knowledge of the local reported potential financial malpractice at Healthcare Michigan, representatives of the International Union conducted a review of the local union’s books and records and found information indicating abuse of the local union’s loan and paid time off/earned vacation policy,” according to the SEIU release quoted by MLive.
Sinai-Grace workers’ first attempt to expel HCMI was blocked by the National Labor Review Board, but a second decertification petition has been filed and the NLRB will set dates for a vote “in the very near future.”
According to the Foundation news release, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry noted the “serious and longstanding” allegations against HCMI local union officials were “substantiated.”
“These latest developments show why these workers should not have been blocked in their earlier attempt to have a vote to oust HCMI from their workplace,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Union officials frequently look the other way when confronted with wrongdoing by others within the union hierarchy, so it is telling that even an SEIU International top boss says HCMI officials are unfit to run the local.”
Mix continued, “Rank-and-file workers should not have to navigate the NLRB’s labyrinth of rules for decertification elections just to escape an unwanted union, and individual workers should be allowed to decide for themselves whether to have a union represent them.”
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Bruce Walker is a regional editor at The Center Square. He previously worked as editor at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s MichiganScience magazine and The Heartland Institute’s InfoTech & Telecom News.
Photo “Mark Mix” by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
